


Object Constancy

by ArwenLune



Series: Object Permanence [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, F/M, Kink Negotiation, Natasha Gets a Hug, Natasha Needs a Hug, Non-Sexual Submission, Platonic Romance, Power Dynamics, Slow Build, extremely mild kink themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1517981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Nick, en route</p><p>(because you can't put that many Fury/Natasha feels in a movie and not expect me to ship it like FEDEX)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going with the AU explanation that Natasha is older than movie canon puts her - that she was genetically enhanced. It makes the age gap easier to handle, so hey. 
> 
> Also, this first chapter is kind of weird and bridge-to-nowhere feeling, but the 2nd chapter is where I really wanted to go.

It took years for her to realise that she liked him. That she enjoyed the little diplomacy missions he took her on. That it had become less about the strategic advantage of being present and more about the sharing of a car, the amused glances they traded over the dinner table, and the occasional dance.

It took her a long time to unpick why she liked it when he touched her.

(It wasn't because him wanting to touch her, desiring her, gave her power.)

(It was maybe the first time in her long life that it wasn't about that.)

Not because the pride in his voice told her she had value, value that made her safe. Or at least saf _er_.

No, it was just because his hands were warm and sure, and he never treated her as anything but fully, completely human. She was not a weapon to him, nor a toy. She was a person with skills he appreciated and respected.

She realised that she liked it when he helped her into her coat, turned up her collar, the way his hands smoothed down her coat over her shoulders. There was something protective about it. He had – and would again – sent her into danger, but it was important to him that the biting cold wind of a January night didn't get to her. Even though she's Russian, and he knews she was used to far sharper chills.

She remembered that first diplomatic mission, when she'd still been so uncertain of her new footing, and he'd shown himself to be human. It had been deliberate – she was not blind to this – but it had also spoken to her in a language she could understand, if not trust quite yet. And when a man sat her down to discuss a pension plan, she'd swallowed at the realisation that Fury must have spent time considering how to communicate to her what her position was within SHIELD, and settled on this.

The first time she found herself leaning into his touch, she volunteered herself for a deep-cover mission in Budapest the next day. Coulson raised one eyebrow, because it was not a secret to him that she loathed deep cover, loathed having to lose her new-found self into whatever cover story she needed to use.

But she needed the space.

Because she didn't just want to push into Fury's touch. She wanted, for a brief instant, to feel his arm heavy around her neck, for him to pull her back tight against his chest. To feel the power of his strong arm around her throat, and his low, rough voice rumble against her ear.

She knew this was not something she should want.

There was no Natasha Romanov when Clint found her. For forty years (Fifty? The papers that could have told her were lost. She had memories of the first moon landing, of being an adult when the Wall went down, but she wasn't sure if they were her own) there was just the Black Widow, raised by the Red Room from before her conscious memories started. Given the right memories and the right training to fake being a real person.

She had to start building herself from the ground up, without blueprint. There were still times when she stopped and needed to ask herself if a preference was truly her own, or something from a false memory or a cover identity.

(Clint, when he realised she had no idea what kind of food, drink and sweets she liked, has taken great joy in helping her find out. Coulson occasionally assisted. Whenever they ate somewhere, plates were still habitually switched even now, so she could try everything.)

Was the kind of controlled harshness she suddenly craved from Fury something that Natasha Romanov wanted, or is it simply the only way she knew to feel close to somebody? As the SHIELD psychologists said, she had no template for affection.

So she went to Budapest for five months, in which time the only, sporadic contact with SHIELD was via Coulson. There was no word from Fury, which was as expected and yet she was disconcertingly aware that she was aware of its absence.

Then in month four she received a supply drop which included a slab of the chili-flavoured chocolate Fury kept in his car, and which she had decimated more than once. (The first time was an accident. She hadn't meant to finish it; she'd been distracted by their conversation. Since then there'd been a new slab every time, and Fury holding out his hand for an equal share, and she finally just accepted that he had as much of a sweet tooth for the stuff as she did.)

She didn't know what the chocolate in the drop-box meant. That worried her. She was used to knowing what men wanted of her.

The Budapest op was supposed to run for about six months, but things turned into a clusterfuck of Byzantine proportions. Clint got dropped in as her backup – just an hour too late to prevent her from getting shot, but still, better than nothing – and together they'd clawed and shot their way out of the city.

When she woke in the SHIELD infirmary a couple of days later, her body having mostly repaired itself while she slept, a slab of chili-chocolate had appeared on her bedstand.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner had been so haute cuisine that the actual volume of food hadn't really been enough to satisfy for long, so they'd ended up in a diner afterward for a second dinner of much more down to earth food. Then they walked back to the hotel, only to get stuck under an awning halfway when it started to pour with rain.

Fury – Nick – positioned them so that they could both stand out of the rain and also both see a section of the street. They were close together, her shoulder pressed up against his upper arm.

She'd been telling him about a mission where she'd been subjected to a series of stuffy embassy meals while Clint and Coulson complained and ate delicious streetfood. Natasha enjoyed the rare grin she got to see. He saw _her_ , she knew, not a persona, but really her, and the way he looked at her gave her a funny feeling low in her stomach.

A gust of wind drove the rain under their hiding spot, and Natasha ducked a little closer, story trailing off at the way he looked at her, his eye intent. She shivered, thoughts trailing to a halt.

He cupped one large hand around her jaw, fingertips in her neck, and she stilled. This was why she'd gone to Budapest, because she'd thought this was coming and she hadn't known what to do. Wasn't sure she did know it now.

"Okay?" his eyebrows seemed to ask. She let go the tense breath that was sitting high in her chest and leaned into his touch a little. His motions were slow, and she might have resented being treated like a skittish animal if she didn't feel so much like one, torn between fight-flight and wanting to put herself into this man's hands.

His other hand settled in along her neck, so he was cradling her head, and she found that her hands had come up to clamp around his wrists. She didn't know if she was trying to pull his hands away or keep them where they were.

Everything inside her screamed that this was very bad, that she'd put herself in a position to get her neck snapped, and she forced a shivery breath in and out of her lungs. She was shaking so hard she was sure he could feel it, a tension vibrating from the base of her skull.

"I've got you," he said, voice pitched low. She dimly wondered how words that had always seemed so threatening could sound reassuring now. He was still looking into her face, and she struggled to maintain the eye contact. His hands squeezed a little as if to confirm his words, and she felt her mouth open on a silent 'oh' as her eyes drifted shut.

"Is that what you need?" he asked softly, and she heard herself make a tiny whimper deep in her throat. "I need you to say it."

His hands eased off, and she rocked on her feet. She tried to use her grip on his wrists to push-pull into his hands, wanting the pressure back, the way it made her head silent.

"Natasha?" he prompted, and gods, this was why she trusted him. Because he understood just how complicated being touched was to her, let alone by somebody who commanded her. Because he wanted to be sure.

"Please.. sir?" she managed, soft as breathing. It was followed by a soft, needy whine when he increased the pressure again, fingers pressing against the back of her neck in that way that made her bones feel liquid. He pulled her a little closer, and she went willingly, sighing when she felt his lips press against her forehead, his goatee a little scratchy.

Then he tugged her forward until her forehead rested against his chest, big hands shifting until one lay on the nape of her neck and the other cupped the back of her skull. She breathed out and felt a low hum in his chest.

"That's good," he murmured, and she realised she'd stopped shaking.

His chest expanded as he took a slow, deep breath, and she anchored herself to that rhythm, breathing in. He smelled of coffee and leather and the slightest hint of his cologne. He smelled, she realised dimly, of _safe_ – of home after a mission. His scent was  intrinsically linked in her mind with debriefs and the sound of his private coffeemaker in his office and being warm and clean and bandaged up after missions. She associated him with drinking coffee and eating walnut cookies (she thought he had some kind of baked-goods-for-coffee deal with his assistent) while laying down the burden of a mission. With that time she'd fallen asleep on the couch in his office while mid-sentence in the debrief of the Tallinn mission. She'd woken up two hours later with his long coat spread out over her, and he hadn't said anything, just given her a new cup of coffee and resumed the debrief.

"What do you need this to be?" he asked, and she blinked up at him. That was _her_ question, her _job_ – to be what the other person needed her to be. To hear Nick Fury, of all people, ask her what she needed from him, utterly derailed her.

She'd thought about it, while she was in Budapest. What this could be, might be. She'd figured that if anything did happen, sex would be part of it. It wasn't a distasteful thought – not with him, not with somebody she liked and trusted and whose touch she almost _craved_ – but it also wasn't the part she really wanted from him. She'd never felt a desire to have sex, not even after the Red Room wasn't chosing her partners anymore and she could pick somebody she trusted. She'd just always tried to be what the other person – or the mission – needed her to be.

(In her three and a half years with SHIELD she'd had sex three times – all with Clint, because he was the only one she had been able to imagine herself relaxing with. It had been nice, but she had never been after the sex itself. He had realised that the last time, when she'd initiated when they'd been holed up in a safehouse after a mission, both dead on their feet and hurting.

"Tasha, do you really want to be doing this?" Clint had asked, because somehow he'd understood this before she did. "We could just do the cuddle part."

He'd tucked her head under his chin and held her for a long time, refusing to accept her sulty 'Of course' until she'd thought about it. She'd pressed her face into his neck and felt confused until she'd realised that that, right there, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her, was all she'd wanted. Touch and comfort from somebody she trusted. She just didn't have a clue how to ask for it.)

(After that, Clint had insisted on random hugs a lot more often, and he must have said something, because Coulson had started sitting shoulder to shoulder with her on flights, offering contact if she wanted it.)

Would Nick still give her this if there was no sex in return? She wasn't sure. On the other hand she was quite sure that the idea of sex as a transaction was distasteful to him.

"Can it be – can it be just this?" she asked finally, voice more of a whisper than she wanted it to be.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, Natasha, it can be."

 


	3. Chapter 3

The rain stopped, and they walked to the hotel, his hand heavy and warm in the small of her back. It was a familiar enough touch to let her regain her focus and situational awareness. They didn't speak as they made their way to the suite. The first time she'd stayed in a hotel with Clint and Coulson she'd been wary, but getting a suite with bedrooms was SOP for SHIELD – it was a lot easier from a security point of view. They wordlessly went through the counter-surveillance routine.

When Fury was satisfied they were secure, his first order of business was to get the uncomfortable eye prosthetic out and his eyepatch on. Once comfortable he settled on the sofa with a drink, and Natasha drifted through the room, unable to settle down. She found herself vacillating between wanting to sit down next to him – curl up against him, burrow under his arm like somebody in need of comfort and protection – and being unable to allow herself anything of the sort.

When she'd physically checked every quare inch of the suite for bugs – entirely unnecessary, since their scanner had already cleared the space – her orbit finally deposited her in front of the couch. Fury – Nick – was watching her with something like patient amusement. She cast her gaze down, feeling strange and uneasy with the urge to sit down at his feet, to be small and vulnerable.

She heard the clink of ice in his glass as he set it down, and his hand came into her field of view, palm up, offered but not commanding.

"Is this why you wanted to go to Budapest?" he asked, and she ground her teeth against the urge to nod, to admit. Her breath had crept up high into her chest, faster and flatter than it ought to be, and she forced it down.

He laid his hand on his knee, palm up - offer not withdrawn but comfortable enough to wait - and picked his glass back up with his other hand. She inwardly cursed him for not telling her to come closer, not even asking – it would have been easy if he'd just indicated what he wanted of her. She wouldn't still be standing here, torn in every fibre of her being. Her feet, still in uncomfortable heels, were aching.

Clint had given her the chance, and Coulson had backed him, but she'd built her new life on the foundation this man had given her. She had set her new course, the course to wipe out the red in her ledger, by a compass in which this man was North.

"ублюдок" she cursed him under her breath. _Bastard_. It came out more resigned than vehement, and he chuckled. She forced herself into motion, almost mechanically reached out to lay her hand in his.

She kept her eyes cast down as he gently guided her to sit next to him, his hand large and warm around hers. She sat a little stiffly, waiting for... whatever she was waiting for, but he just took another sip of his drink.

"I want, but I don't.. want to want...?" she finally offered, after what felt like a long time.

"Nothing is happening until you don't have to use sniper breathing to stay calm, Natochka," he said.

The endearment shook her up a little, broke through her inner standoff. She leaned in to his side, almost experimentally. He was solid and warm, reassuringly steady, and she breathed out. Toed off her high-heeled shoes, wiggling and stretching her feet in relief.

It was almost startling to realise she wasn't sure what to do now. She'd always felt sure during intimate encounters – confident that she was good at it, that she could read the other person well enough. That she would know what they wanted from her and be able to give it to them. That she would satisfy. Nick had to understand that, she realised; he was purposefully not giving her anything to go on, because he wanted to know what _she_ wanted from this.

After a moment of hesitation she drew up her feet, tucking her legs next to her, and tilted her head against his shoulder. His thumb was rubbing slow circles over the back of her hand, and she used that rhythm to focus her breathing, letting every exhale sink her deeper into the couch and against his side.

He hummed approvingly, and after a long few minutes, lifted his arm so he could put it around her. She let his gravity drag her a little closer, cheek against his shoulder, and reached up to pull the three-pronged hairfork from her hair, undoing the artful updo she'd worn for the dinner. The fork was elegant polished wood, with invisible cores of metal just in case she needed a melee weapon on short notice.

Nick chuckled and laid it aside for her, gently unwinding her hair with his other hand. It wasn't until he was rubbing her scalp that she realised she was pushing her head into his touch, chasing the sensation. His strong, broad fingers dug into her hair, and she made a tiny, involuntary sound deep in her throat, turning her face into his shoulder.

She shuddered when his hand slowly kneaded down her neck, nerves jangling for a moment at the feeling of a large hand almost encircling her neck. He kneaded harder, and she took a deep breath, the scent of him reminding her in whose strong, capable hands she was, and she felt herself slump, tension suddenly gone.

"Good?" he asked after what seemed like a long time, his voice pitched low.

She gave a hum of agreement, struggling to scrape together anything so coherent as a reply. It felt good. Beyond good.

"I'll take that for a 'yes, sir'," he chuckled, giving the nape of her neck a squeeze.

It drew a soft moan from her throat, and she stilled for a moment at hearing herself make a sound she'd only ever faked. Moaning had always been a deliberate vocalisation, a means to steer an encounter in whatever direction she needed it to go. A way to influence her partner. She couldn't remember it ever having been drawn out of her like this.

Nick drew her up a little against him, a thumb under her jaw so he could look into her eyes. She normally never had problems meeting his gaze, not the way she knew a lot of other agents did. The Red Room had drilled it into her to never question, never challenge, never risk displeasing a superior. Any fear of displeasing Fury had long faded away since she'd joined SHIELD. He didn't intimidate her anymore, and she knew him well enough to know that he liked that, that he enjoyed that she'd speak up, stand up.

Maybe that was why she could let herself fall under his spell now, because she knew it didn't say anything about how he would view her ability to do her job. She focused on his eye and felt the weight of his regard, the power of his personality, tower over her. He moved his face closer to hers, and she made a tiny whimper sound, struggling to keep his gaze against the urge to look away or close her eyes.

The corners of his mouth turned up in a slow, devious smile, and she drew in a sharp breath, feeling her stomach swoop when he pressed his lips against hers. It was a closed-mouthed kiss, almost chaste, all presence and power. A mind kiss rather than a body kiss. He was already drawing away again by the time she realised she could respond to it, draw it out. That she wanted to.

He got to his feet, pulling her up with him. She leaned into him automatically, her arms going around his waist for balance.

"Natasha," he said into her hair, "whatever you want here - whatever you want from me, you can probably have it. But I need you to figure out what it is, and then tell me, okay? Needs. Desires. Limits. I need the words."

She nodded into his chest.

"Good." He dug his hand into her hair and used his grip to tilt up her face. Her eyes slid shut when he pressed a kiss to her forehead, all the noise inside her head going quiet for a moment. She could feel him smile against her skin. Then he disengaged.

"Six AM start tomorrow, so I'm going to bed now. Sleep well."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know. Just a snippet

She watched as he peeled an orange, strong fingers pulling apart the tart flesh. The scent of it always made her push closer, breathe in deep. Fresh fruit had never been part of her life, even after she had gained some measure of control over her what she ate, and she had dismissed oranges as too messy. Nick liked them though, and she'd learned that the very best way of eating oranges was to watch him peel them and then nestling under his arm while getting fed pieces of orange.

 


End file.
